


My Hopes Are So High That Your Kiss Might Kill Me

by Oddree13



Series: Kliego Week 2020 [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Kissing, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Drug Use, Past Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz, Pseudo-Incest, really kissing is the whole plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:55:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27264604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oddree13/pseuds/Oddree13
Summary: It happens.Then it happens again.And again.And again.A kiss. A vision. An ending.He pieces it together eventually. Klaus’ powers have another facet, one he wishes he could do away with sometimes more than the ghosts.When Klaus has a first kiss, he also experiences the last. Every time.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves
Series: Kliego Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985090
Comments: 4
Kudos: 62
Collections: Kliego Week 2020





	My Hopes Are So High That Your Kiss Might Kill Me

**Author's Note:**

> For the Kliego Week Prompt - Soulmates

The first time it happens Klaus has no idea what’s happening. A press of lips, the sensation of another kiss over it, and then back to the current kiss. 

He doesn’t understand until two weeks later. Klaus is kissing the same boy again when he experiences a tinge of deja vu from the make-out session. Klaus can’t place it but before he can think about it more, the boy Klaus has been sneaking out to see is apologizing, telling Klaus that he can’t see him again. Through the tears, Klaus shakes off the sensation under the rationale of coincidence and goes back to the Academy. 

Then it happens again. 

And again. 

And again. 

A kiss. A vision. An ending.

He pieces it together eventually. Klaus’ powers have another facet, one he wishes he could do away with sometimes more than the ghosts. 

When Klaus has a first kiss, he also experiences the last. Every time.

He never tells Sir, for fear that his father would put him through a new set of experiments - ones that Klaus can’t bear to think of. So he keeps it to himself and never lets anyone in on his secret. Even after he leaves the academy, Klaus doesn’t tell his siblings, because honestly, who would believe him?

Outside of the safety of the Academy walls, Klaus turns his secondary power into a gauge of sorts. His lips become the test for who it’s safe to go home with, who it’s safe to offer certain, untoward favors to, who won’t beat him senseless. 

One time amid a rave, Klaus kisses a woman in the middle of a song and sees two old people sharing a kiss in a hospital setting. It’s the first time Klaus sees the possibility of a forever, but he’s too young, too high, and too afraid to have that knowledge, so he does what he does best - ignores it and runs. 

He wonders for nights after that if she was his only chance at happiness, but over time and with enough pills, that line of thought ends. 

Eventually, Klaus comes to ignore the visions, just like he does the ghosts. It becomes white noise in all his interactions until he’s suddenly in Vietnam with the help of a briefcase. 

It’s late-night at a club in Saigon. The drinks are flowing, the music is pumping, and Klaus hasn’t felt this sober but good in years. His troop is off for the week, and they’re all finally able to let loose. Klaus doesn’t realize how loose some of them feel until Dave is making eyes at him and kissing him in the backroom before Klaus can stop it. Under the warmth of Dave’s lips, there is a tang of copper and the sounds of gunfire. Klaus wants to run, thinking that if he runs and doesn't follow Dave neither would the bullets. But Klaus knows better to think that he could run from someone who makes them feel so special. So he stays, and eventually, February 21, 1968, comes to take his Dave. 

Klaus stops kissing. It’s not as hard as he thinks. Even back in the 1960s when he starts Destiny’s Children all he has to do is spout some Prince lyrics - “I pray that when you dream, you dream of how we kissed, not with our lips but with our souls” - and his followers happily avoid his lips, in exchange for access to other parts of his body.

It works for a long time. It works through the 1960s, through the end of another apocalypse, and even though the start of a new timeline. Klaus is almost convinced that he can go through the rest of his life without kissing a soul - and then Diego happens. 

Klaus does what he can to push Diego away, but with the lack of drugs or booze in his body, his usual self-destruction mechanisms aren’t as effective. He tries barbs, taunts, insults to Diego’s pride, intelligence, and worth. Once he even goes so far one time as to talk about Patch in a way that has Diego’s eyes watering but nothing more than a punch to a wall and Diego stalking away happens. 

But no matter what he does, Diego finds a way around his defenses and secures himself as a permanent fixture in Klaus’ life. Their meals turn into dates. Their beds into sanctuaries. Their lust into love. 

Diego tries to kiss him so many times and Klaus always maneuvers his way around it. 

Klaus is coming down from the high of climax, settling into the tingly haze that comes from fucking Diego when he hears the question.

“Why won’t you kiss me? I t-thought this was more than sex, but if I’m reading this wrong, I’d like to know..."

Klaus has never heard Diego sound so vulnerable and his heart breaks. If he explains himself, there’s a chance Diego’s not going to believe him and think it's some weird excuse to not make this into something more. Diego could also believe him and just think it's too weird, that he’s done adding more weirdness into his life and just walks out of the room and out of Klaus’ heart. There is also the possibility that Diego does believe him, stays, and kisses him. 

But Klaus doesn’t like that possibility, because Klaus knows if he kisses Diego he might see an ending that would kill him. He might kiss Diego and taste the tang of copper as he did with Dave, or see a time too close to now and Klaus gets to sit with the knowledge that Diego and he have an impending expiration date. 

So he explains. He tells Diego about his power, and all the ways it could go wrong. He tells him about Dave, the woman in the club, and how he doesn’t want to know how he and Diego will end because he doesn’t want it to.

“I can’t lose another person like that Diego. I know if I kiss you I’m going to kill this. Us. I can’t lose you too,” he finishes, looking over at Diego in the dark of the room. 

“So kill me.”

“What?!”

“I want you to know what I know. That this is it. You and me Klaus. The only way this ends is with one of us dying, whether it's soon or in fifty years. I want you to know that I’m here for as long as we have left, and that isn’t going to change whether you kiss me tonight or never. But I’d really like to kiss you, Klaus. I think that kissing you is worth knowing I might die tomorrow.”

Klaus isn’t sure what to say. He wants to tell Diego that he’s an idiot, that he’s insane, that he’s asking Klaus to break both their hearts. But Diego’s looking at Klaus with such certainty that Klaus can’t stop the small nod he gives. 

Diego’s smile is worth the answer alone. Even in the dark, he can tell how grateful Diego is for the chance to kiss Klaus. He feels that energy when Diego’s hands cup his face, when their noses brush, and when Diego finally presses their lips together - and then it happens. 

A kiss. A vision. An ending.

Klaus can’t stop himself from crying. He knew he’d cry whatever the answer because after months of waiting he’d finally gotten to kiss Diego.

“Hey, hey, baby don’t cry, don’t cry,” Diego soothes, pulling back to wipe the tears from Klaus’ face. “It doesn’t matter how much time we have left, I'm going to make it worth it, I promise.”

But Klaus shakes his head and pulls Diego down into another kiss.

Then another. 

And another. 

“We don’t need to rush Diego. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

**Author's Note:**

> Did I put "Hands Down" by Dashboard Confessional on repeat while writing this? Absolutely!


End file.
